Five hours to drive from Dwarka to CP

Publishing professionals Deepa Nair, Manisha Mathews and Deepa Baruah ate lunch in their car on Thursday. They’d been in it for over 4 hours, stuck in an endless series of traffic jams, in floodwater that was on the floor of the vehicle.

Mathews and Baruah left their Dwarka homes at 8 am, and Nair waded through knee-deep water at the Dwarka flyover to join them soon after. It was past 1 pm when the women reached work in Connaught Place — taking over 5 hours to cover a distance they do in less than a fifth the time.

“I could have authored a road-rage,” Nair said. “Bikers and motorists broke every traffic rule, and the police watched. “Stuck with us at the Arjun Vihar crossing was an ambulance with a patient.”

The women’s story could have belonged to any of the lakhs of Delhiites harassed by nagging rain and unbelievable civic apathy on Thursday.